Audio : Coach Amy Vachon on Downtown w/ Rich KimballOur weekly visit with University of Maine Women’s Basketball Coach Amy Vachon, as we look back at yesterday’s win over UMass-Lowell and ahead to this weekend’s game against Binghamton.

SCOUTING BINGHAMTON:The Bearcats, currently with their highest win total since 2010-11, carry a four-game win streak into the weekend after a 62-48 victory at Vermont on Wednesday. In the win, Alyssa James tallied her 18th career double-double, finishing with 21 points and 15 rebounds. The league's leader in blocks (3.7) also extended her America East all-time record to 241 career blocks. Imani Watkins, the league's leading scorer at 22.1 points per game, added 19 in the win. Watkins ranks second in the league at 2.8 steals per game. James has been a force down low for the Bearcats as she checks in atop the league's leaders in rebounding (9.9) and ranks second in the nation with 81 total blocks. Kai Moon is adding 11.8 points and leads the Bearcats at 3.0 assists per game.

Binghamton ranks second in the America East in scoring (66.5) and checks in with the top three-point percentage (32.7) among league leaders. Rebounding has been a strong suit for the Bearcats who lead the league at 40.0 boards per game but are allowing a league-worst 40.6 rebounds to its opponents. As a unit, Binghamton is averaging 6.2 blocks per game, almost 3.0 more than the second place team (Vermont - 3.5), and ranks eighth nationally with 137 blocked shots.

A GLIMPSE INTO THE BINGHAMTON SERIES:Maine and Binghamton will meet for the 36th time with the Black Bears holding a 21-14 advantage. In an earlier meeting this season, Binghamton bested the Black Bears 66-62 in overtime. In that game, the Black Bears led by as many as nine but struggled to hold on after giving up 25 turnovers. Blanca Millan (21) and Julie Brosseau (20) each bested 20 points in the outing. Maine, which has won 10 of the last 12 meetings, enter play with a 9-10 record all-time at Binghamton. The Bearcats won last season's meeting in Vestal, 58-52. Maine's last win on the road in the series came on Jan. 30, 2016, a 52-38 decision. Prior to last season's loss at Binghamton, Maine had won five straight road games in the series. Blanca Millan, who has tallied double-digits in scoring in three of her four meetings with Binghamton, enters averaging 13.3 points against the Bearcats.

Maine up 34-20 at the half. Overall, a very good first half both offensively and defensively on the road against a tough Binghamton squad. Just need to cut back on turnovers in the second half (nine in the first half)... hopefully Maine can correct that going forward.

Arguably Maine's best performance all season, Maine dominated Binghamton en route to a 61-38 convincing win on the road. With Albany's loss at UNH and Hartford's loss against Stony Brook this afternoon, Maine is now tied for first place (with Albany) and is two games clear of the next best teams. To be sure, the game at Binghamton was the start of a very difficult 4-game stretch for the Black Bears, with games vs. Hartford and UNH and at Stony Brook next week. So, the conference standings are certainly subject to change.

- Blanca Millan deserves serious consideration for conference player of the year. Granted, I may be a bit prisoner of the moment after she played an outstanding overall game against Binghamton. That having been said, she has been the poster child for offensive consistency during the conference regular season, scoring between 14 and 23 points in every single game. She has done this while boasting an effective field goal percentage of 53.9%, best for fifth in the league (by comparison, Imani Watkins is tied for 27th at 46.8%). The rest of her offensive stat line is as follows: 17.7 PPG (4th in the league), 5.1 RPG (14th), and 13.6 overall offensive efficiency (2nd). What often goes overlooked is Blanca's outstanding defensive ability, and I am not just referring to her league-leading 2.9 steals per game. She often (very effectively) guards the opponent's best offensive player. This was on full display this afternoon, as she was instrumental in holding league scoring leader Imani Watkins to 15 points (7 below her league average) on just 5-18 shooting from the field. Oh, by the way, she has led a team picked sixth in the preseason poll to a current tie for first place.

- It was a relief to see Tanesha Sutton back on the court. It didn't feel like her strongest game (a few uncharacteristic turnovers), but she just missed a double double, with 15 points and 9 boards. Not too shabby!

- Despite Maine's 14-point lead at the break, Maine's nine first-half turnovers (mostly unforced) made me a little nervous that we might see a repeat of the match-up in Bangor on January 6th. My fears were alleviated when the Black Bears cleaned up their play in the second half committing only two turnovers. For those of you counting at home, after committing 21, 25, 18, and 19 turnovers in its first four conference games, Maine has committed 4, 9, 10, 8, 10, and 11 turnovers during its six-game winning streak.

As someone else previously said, next week's games will go a long way toward determining Maine's seeding for the tournament next month. It's certainly possible that Maine's season finale at home against Albany could determine the regular season conference champion - now wouldn't that be fun?!

Last edited by MaineBBFan99 on Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Does anyone think that Maine would have a better record or be playing better if the transfers were still with us? Chemistry is everything.

Would Maine have a better record or be playing better if the transfers were still with us? No, not better, and that is simply because there is little room for improvement in Maine's current regular season conference record. At best, I would say they could have as good of a record.

I recall that after the UNH game, Bob Neal stated that Maine may have hung on to the best of last year's freshmen in terms of kids with whom you can build a team. I remember thinking that it was an interesting take, and one with which I would have completely disagreed 10 months ago. I mean, this year's squad has demonstrated 1) consistency and 2) an ability to win on the road - both areas where last year's team struggled. Sure, part of that is likely due to an additional year of experience for most of the key players. However, I certainly think an argument could be made that improved team chemistry has been instrumental in the Black Bears' solid performance through the first ten games of the conference regular season.

...“We played well defensively. Binghamton had to work for everything,” said Vachon. “Our goal coming into today was to contest every shot and we did that. We also wanted to take care of the ball and rebound and we did that, too.”

UMaine turned the ball over just 11 times and outrebounded Binghamton 40-31. Binghamton had outrebounded the Black Bears 42-40 in their earlier game.

“We attacked them from the free throw-line in and we got layups. Tanesha did an outstanding job of that,” said Vachon. “Blanca had an outstanding performance and we wanted Parise to crash the boards and she did that. She has been playing really well for us.”